Firstly, Here's what you don't do.
Don’t Simply add a limiter to your master and boost the Gain.
Why not? "Everyone just says slap a master over the limiter and that will make it loud."
Well, there are 2 main reasons:
1) If your track isn’t particularly well mixed, it will distort when you start pushing it into a limiter. (Usually the bass will start to distort first.)
2) The upper mid range (around 2-4Khz) tends to get very harsh. It can actually even be painful as our ears are the most sensitive to this frequency range.
The Result? People may actually turn down your song or skip it all together. Not good.
So, how do we get it loud?
Well, getting things to be loud isn’t just one process. But here are 3 things that can help.
Make sure your sub bass isn’t mixed too loud - newcomers to mixing tend to do this, because they don't have accurate enough monitoring or acoustically treated rooms.
2 . Arrangement is hugely important. There’s only so much headroom available. The more instruments and layers you have occurring at the same time - the less loud the key elements can be.
3. Cut unnecessary very low end rumble and noise from tracks where it exists. This is because these often inaudible frequencies also eats up headroom. This can be fixed with a low cut filter.
Although there is much more we can do, these 3 things will allow you to push the gain on your limiter a bit further without the distortion, thus getting your track louder.
If you need help mixing or mastering your song, so it is as loud as your reference tracks, I offer both mixing and mastering here.
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